Boy, 9, Accidentally Hanged Himself With Dressing Gown Cord While Playing Cowboys And Indians

14/08/2014 16:47
|
Updated
22 May 2015

Keith Kendrick
Parentdish UK

A nine-year-old boy died after he accidentally strangled himself on a dressing gown cord while playing Cowboys and Indians in his bedroom.

Connar Kiedyk was found hanged from his bunk bed by his sister in June last year.

An inquest at Cleethorpes Town Hall, Lincolnshire, heard how Connar's sister had been sent upstairs to ask her brother to sign a form as part of a change to his family's doctors surgery when she found him hanged.

She ran downstairs and told her mother Ursula Kiedyk that Connar might have 'done something very stupid'.

Ursula ran upstairs to Connar's room in Grimsby, called an ambulance and attempted to revive her son.

Connar, who had been adopted by Ursula and her husband Anthony in 2009, died shortly afterwards at the nearby Diana Princess of Wales Hospital.

Ursula told the coroner that Connar had a bunk bed in his room with no bottom bunk in it so that he had more space to play his favourite Cowboys and Indians game using his toy soldiers, and that she had asked him to tidy his room that evening.

She said: "Connar would usually shove everything in a corner and say it's done, and then said 'I'll go check' which meant it wasn't tidy.

"Certain toys had to be downstairs in order for us to keep an eye on him with them, but we had no problems with his toy soldiers in his bedroom which he used to play Cowboys and Indians with."

District Coroner Paul Kelly recorded an accidental death verdict.

"Connar was a warm little chap and a much loved child," he said.

"There were no adverse matters or third party involvement in Connar's death. Connar was playing Cowboys and Indians at the time, and it was an experiment involving his dressing gown which cost him his life."